This is probably of limited interest to most, but I’ve been a fan of the work of both for several years and have posters from each with hop varietals (including storability) and cone pictures that have adorned previous office walls, the garage, etc. I’m hopeful that this means that Yakima Chief will pick up some of the cult marketing acumen that Hop Union has created, and that I’ll be able to one day order a ball cap or a beer koozie with the Yakima Chief logo on it. Or maybe just a big ‘ol Simcoe hop cone. Yup, Simcoes are awesome.

I wonder if they’ll use the opportunity to change their name to Yakama? (i to a – it’s a tribal thing)

I dusted off my Amarillo Red recipe and decided to change it up a little for a fall brew. I have an abundance of Simcoe hops at the moment and a relatively small amount of Amarillo pellets, so I’me going to tweak the recipe for this brew.

Grain bill

15 lbs. domestic 2-row

5 lbs German Pilsner malt

1.5 lbs Crystal 60L

1 lbs Crystal 120L

1 lbs malted wheat

Hops

2oz Simcoe (whole cone) @ 60 minutes

2oz Simcoe @ 10 minutes

2oz Amarillo pellets @ 5 min

1oz Amarillo @ flameout

1oz Simcoe @ flameout

1oz Simcoe dry hopped

Yeast

Safale S-05 (1st carboy)

Wyeast British Ale Yeast (2nd carboy)

Instructions?

You know the drill, right? Get up at 6am on a Sunday, start heating the water in the HLT, go back and get some more coffee, etc. The SRM should come out around 13-14L. f

After a delay, I finally noticed a post from Linds regarding this NYT interactive map of Craft Brewing. The data are from 2012, but it’s still an interesting ecosystem that seems to ignore the trend of larger mergers and acquisitions. My attention to the craft industry has waned a little in the last couple years, but I’m not surprised by the number of new pubs opening. Good luck, young upstarts!

One of my favorite annual events, beer-related or not, is back at Overlook Park again through Sunday, June 30th. Check out the North American Organic Brewers Festival for some relaxed mood, some music and food, and of course, an exciting lineup of organic beers.

On an already incredibly celebratory day, this bit of brewing related news comes from my turf. Oregon officially recognizes brewer’s yeast, saccharomyces cerevisiae, as the state microbe. That’s right, we’re the first state to officially designate a state microbe.

Really though, besides Aspergillus oryzae, what other microbe does as much to contribute to our culture and economy? Way to go, humble heroes!

Yesterday, as rain poured down outside the open garage, a Baltic porter was born. A few friends joined to get a refresher in partial mash brewing (extract plus steeping grains). We started the morning with a quick recipe, a trip to Homebrew Exchange (which is open Sundays thankyouverymuch), and got the water heating. I had to do some reading again to remind myself how to do an extract batch, but the savings in setup, time, and cleanup were a nice change of pace. To mix things up, and to get beer a little sooner, we decided to split the beer in two carboys and pitch one with british ale yeast and the other with California lager yeast (2 packs on a recommendation from the shopkeeper). Brew day was easy, and the extra hands around meant that cleanup (and carrying the 6+ gallons for beer to the basement) was much easier.

In a “life imitates art” display of use of the Idiot trademark, Coronado Brewing Company is suing Elysian for Elysian’s use of Idiot in their Sauvin IPA. I’m on the verge of heading to San Diego for work and had collected a list of breweries to try while I’m down there. Coronado’s legal exercise just made that list a little shorter.

I was recently given a homebrew from a coworker. Not an entirely unique thing, but when she said it was brewed with avocado leaves, I was intrigued. It’s a partial-mash beer. The carbonation is great, the beer is a nice hazy pale, and the aroma is predominantly malt but with an earthy sweetness that I’m not familiar with. The taste is great – I’m actually surprised by the beer – for an extract beer it’s very clean and there’s not too much sweetness or anything. It’s really good – and there’s just something different about it that is intriguing. I’ve never had avocado leaves in anything so I have nothing to compare it to.

There’s not much hop to it, but I understand why. The leaves apparently came from a friend in Hawaii, and were steeped and added to the wort. It’s definitely a recipe worth brewing again.

Today’s brew went from normal to Imperial when the hot liquor tank ran out of hot water. I was shooting for an IPA with a nice biscuit flavor. Thus BIPA. All told, the OG was 1.078 and I managed to pull off a full 10 gallons.

Grain

18 lbs 2-row

6 lbs Pilsner

1 lbs Munich

1 lbs Biscuit

Hops

3 oz Simcoe @ 60min

1 oz Newport @ 60min

2 oz Simcoe @ 20 min

2 oz Simcoe @ 10min

1 oz Amarillo @ 7min

1.5 oz Simcoe @ 5min

1 oz Simcoe in keg

Other

1 packet of Safale S05 in 1.5L starter

1 smack pack Wyeast NW ale yeast

blend the two at inoculation

I debated whether to have two separate batches with a unique yeast, but given the initial gravity, I opted to mix and pitch to make sure both beers got a running start.